Sitting in a classroom all day doesn’t work for many kids. Some of the innovative education models that are exploding recognize this fact. Forest schools, hybrid schools, unschooling, and microschools typically offer children flexible ways to learn that can help keep them more engaged than they would be in a conventional classroom.
Another option for students who are looking for a more hands‐on approach to education is vocational‐technical school, also known as career and technical education or CTE. This can be particularly important in states like Massachusetts that have no private school choice programs, such as tax credit scholarships or education savings accounts.
Fortunately for students in the Bay State, most of Massachusetts’s voc‐tech schools are producing impressive results. According to Jamie Gass, Director of the Center for School Reform at Pioneer Institute, a 1993 education reform law had a huge impact on voc‐tech schools. “At that time, voc‐tech schools were some of the lowest performing schools,” he says. “Because of their focus on occupational education, they were highly resistant to standards and tests. Eventually they embraced it, though, and they’ve seen the biggest gains of pre‐existing schools.”
The 1993 law was a bipartisan compromise that exchanged additional state funding for higher academic standards, a high‐stakes test for graduation, teacher tests, charter schools, and accountability for everyone in the system. Jamie says the voc‐tech schools used the accountability tools to make improvements in academic and vocational achievement. “They were very creative figuring ways to integrate the academic side with the vocational tracks,” he notes.
Pioneer Institute’s new book, Hands‐On Achievement, details the success of Massachusetts’s vocational‐technical schools and recommends them as a model for the nation. Students in the voc‐tech schools alternate weeks between academics and shop work, and they get to learn by doing. This hands‐on learning approach includes studying physics while working on hydraulic brakes or using the Pythagorean theorem to frame a house.
The schools have also embraced more classical content, like Shakespeare, with the recognition that advanced reading and writing skills are often needed to understand trade manuals or communicate with future customers. This further supports the goal of readying students for college or career—and around two‐thirds continue to some type of post‐secondary education, including apprenticeships, associate degree programs, or a four‐year college.
One point frequently emphasized in the Hands‐On book is that the voc‐tech schools are schools of choice. Students must choose to enroll in them, rather than being residentially assigned, and they choose their content track within the school. This gives students more ownership over their education, which helps them stay motivated. The schools also typically have detailed plans in place to get students back on track if they start to stray. It seems to be working. While enrolling more students with special needs and more low‐income students, the voc‐tech schools have lower dropout rates than the conventional high schools.
Allowing funding to follow students—including to private education options—is the preferred method of providing school choice. But in the absence of those programs, having more options within the public school sector is very important. The Massachusetts experience provides valuable lessons for other states that are looking to improve their career and technical education.
